As I started reading I was reminded of our vacation last month and a child that was seated at a table behind us. We were at McDonalds so I had different expectations then you would if you were at a nice, sit down place.

However, this child was definitely out of control. He proceeded to bounce on the booth seat, reach out and touch my and my daughter’s hair, run around the restaurant, attempted to push my baby’s high chair etc. We ignored him for the most part with me rolling my eyes as the mom sat there texting on her phone and ignoring her child. Then, he got his mother’s car keys and tried to poke my baby. Ahem. No. The mother never said a word. I, however, told him no and he looked shocked like he had never heard that word before. I then told him to go sit down. His mother still never said anything and I am not sure she even looked up from her phone.

These are the kinds of parents that I believe Mr. Granderson is addressing. The ones that don’t take the time or even attempt to provide any discipline or structure. Now while I think he has a point in some instance, in others he is way off base. So off base that I thought he must not have kids, but he does.

Mr. Granderson needs to adjust his expectations of what is considered an adult activity. While a 5 year old running around at a five star up scale dining establishment is out of line, a child running around at a Burger King is not. Flying in an airplane is not an adult activity. If you don’t like the screaming kids, move to first class or fly Malaysian Airlines. Children and families have just as much right as you do to go on vacation. Sometimes the parents are actually trying to calm their kids and while there is the occasional parent who ignores them and let’s them run rampant, I think they are in the minority. Grocery shopping is not an adult activity and I can’t even believe Mr. Granderson tried to make that point. The majority of grocery shopping is done by moms and yes, we usually have our kids in tow. Maybe he can come babysit for all of us while we make a run to get food for our families.

I think Mr. Granderson also needs to realize in some instances, the child may be special needs. Many children with disorders, such as Autism, don’t understand social behavior and have great difficulty with anything out of their routine. This is the nature of Autism and no amount of structured discipline is going to stop a meltdown when they have one. I feel these parents are doing the best they can and it is unfair to ask them to not take their children out. If that were the case, the parents would never leave the house. So be mindful Mr. Granderson as there are always exceptions to the rule.

Now, Mr. Granderson is spot on with his comment about “the look”. I use this one every day multiple times a day. It only works though if you are already have structured discipline and they know what to expect. As to children that slap there parents, I have a hard time with anyone who gets slapped by their child and does nothing. A very firm “we do not hit” is definitely needed and no sugar coating. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard a mom say something like “No angel, we don’t hit” in that sickeningly sweet voice. Where is the authority in that? I use what I call my teacher voice and the minute that comes out, my kids hop to it.

When I worked in the schools and now when I am around other kid’s my daughter’s age, I can usually tell which ones are going to have issues when they get older. When we walk home from school there are kids that practically run over you with their bikes, curse a blue streak, push other kids down, run out in front of moving cars, throw rocks at each other, get in the local creek when the principals of the school have asked them not to and openly disrespect the parents on the sidewalk. I even had one tell a fellow mom to f-off. These are elementary age kids. My issue, and one that Mr. Granderson is attempting to discuss, is the lack of respect for authority figures and while these kids are in elementary school, it is only going to get worse from there.

So it comes to this. Children are here to stay. They are the reason the human race continues to thrive. There are always going to be bad parents. There are always going to be good parents. There will always be kids misbehaving in public, so it is up to you Mr. Granderson, the adult, to deal with them because they are just kids being raised by parents who are most likely doing the best they can.

ADDENDUM: Since writing this post, I have come across a restaurant in Pennsylvania that is actually banning children under six years of age. You can see the post here. The last quote the owner uses at the end of the article sounds alot like what Mr. Granderson was saying. Personally, if he has a few unruly customers who keep bringing in poorly behaved children, why doesn’t he ban them? Why punish everyone? I support his right to do what he did, but I don’t agree with it. What do you all think?

My mother, the registered nurse, strictly enforced hand-washing, early bedtimes, and other health standards that seemed archaic to her offspring. Even in the summertime I remember lying in bed long before darkness rolled in, listening to my friends laughing and playing down the street. I vowed to be more laid back with my own kids.

Now that I’m a parent I try to make sure my kids get a reasonable amount of sleep. I just do so in a more casual manner. Turns out that’s good, because recent studies prove my mother’s emphasis on a decent night’s sleep was spot on.

How long babies sleep at night seems to help them grow into calmer, more cooperative children. Researchers in Canada assessed the nighttime sleep of 60 toddlers at 12 and 18 months of age, then assessed the executive function (EF) of these children six to eight months later. Higher total sleep time at both ages related to better EF indicators such as impulse control. Children develop unevenly but as you can imagine, early gains in EF skills including attentiveness, self-discipline, and cooperation are entirely positive. While 12 to 14 hours of sleep is recommended for toddlers, you’ll be relieved to know that the number of times children woke at night didn’t affect test results. Each of my four children could easily be described as “difficult” babies. They slept very little at night (and thanks to them none of us slept much at night) until, thanks to a friend’s old copy of The Continuum Concept I began bringing my little ones into bed with me. They slept more peacefully and longer. We all did.

The amount of sleep young children get is also closely related to learning. A study of 8,000 preschoolers found that children with regular early bedtimes scored higher in most developmental measures including pre-reading, language, and early math skills. This study found that children getting fewer than 11 hours of sleep scored lower in a range of tests. In the preschool years, 11 to 13 hours of sleep is recommended. I have to wonder if the study factored in all the relevant variables. These learning gains may be related to consistent styles of parenting (not only bedtimes but conversation, reading aloud, and other elements of enriched upbringing) versus more chaotic styles of parenting. In my family we have imposed bedtimes on all but the oldest teens, but we’ve always been pretty flexible. There are plenty of things worth postponing a child’s sleep—a concert in the park, a gathering with friends that extends well into the night, or sitting around a bonfire telling stories.

The importance of sleep also extends to behavior. A study of nearly 7,000 preschoolers, the same data sample used for the learning outcome study, indicated that children who got less sleep in the preschool years were also assessed as more hyperactive, impulsive, and unable to pay attention by the time they reached kindergarten. In one of many chicken and egg issues facing social science, it isn’t clear if children develop these problems due to limited sleep or if difficulty sleeping may be an indicator of a pre-existing problem. One of my children was diagnosed with ADD. He slept just fine. We discovered the problem had quite a bit more to do with food intolerances and a serious mismatch with today’s educational approach.

There are plenty of other studies telling us that we need to sleep well. Some of us may even be wearing our exhaustion in the form of extra pounds. Sleep deprivation is linked to obesity in preschoolers and children, as well as in teens and adults. Around here, the kids who stay up with me watching late night TV are annoyingly thin and energetic, but their insomniac mother should be a better role model. I suppose I could lie in bed listening to my loved ones laughing and playing on these summer nights while I pretend to sleep.

A couple of business professors were looking around at research on what happens in our brains when we close our eyes. Go ahead, give it a whirl, close your eyes. Hey, you’re still reading, cut it out, get those eyes closed.

OK, now come on back. Come back. COME BACK! Jeez, don’t make me have to shout.

What happened while you were under the eyelids? Perhaps you did a bit of mental picturing. Perhaps you saw a tropical beach and a cool drink with one of those tiny pink umbrellas. Perhaps a loved one. Or maybe you saw what I saw: all the dirty laundry piled up at home, with that sweet little pool of cat barf next to it.

Well, whatever you saw, people apparently do think differently with eyes closed. We not only have more mental resources to spend on thinking, we also create deeper and richer mental worlds, and we feel more emotional about them. You might, for example, experience music differently with your eyes closed than with them open.

The authors wondered if these extra mental resources and emotions would lead us to stronger ethical judgments. In other words, when your eyes are open, maybe you think the guy who just cut in front of you in line is a big old jerk. But if you close your eyes and re-envision him cutting – in slo-mo, perhaps with some ominous background music – then you think he’s the worst human being ever. And you would never, ever cut in any lines yourself.

In the time-honored tradition of using undergraduates as subjects, these profs — Eugene Caruso at the University of Chicago and Francesca Gino at Harvard — ran their students through some experiments to test their claim. In one, for example, the students read statements of moral and immoral actions like these:

Underreporting the number of hours you worked to ensure that you do not overcharge an employer. (Moral action)

Inflating the number of hours you worked to get more money. (Immoral action)

The students rated whether these actions were morally appropriate and fair, and then estimated the likelihood that they themselves might do them. The kicker was that one randomly chosen half the students were asked to consider these questions with their eyes closed. The other half weren’t.

And voila! The closed-eyed kids were more ethically judgmental and reported that they were less likely to perform an immoral act themselves, as compared to the open-eyed kids. And the whole series of experiments backed up this result. The authors conclude that “closing one’s eyes polarizes moral judgments and discourages dishonest behavior.”

How handy! Everybody’s got eyelids, right? Even Bernie Madoff. What if everyone who is about to rob a convenience store just closed their eyes for a moment? Crime would plummet! We could have a whole “Close Your Eyes!” campaign targeted at, say, Wall Street bankers, tinpot dictators, and everyone who leaves the toilet seat up.

Anyway, here are my take-home messages from the study:

1. When considering an ethical decision, do not close your eyes. If you do, you’ll probably end up with the boring, goody-two-shoes answer that least benefits you personally.

2. If somebody sees you, say, stick your used chewing gum under the chair, make sure they don’t close their eyes. If they do, they’ll really hate your guts instead of just thinking you’re a schmuck.

Oh, and one last tantalizing thing. I thought that closing our eyes increased mental resources because we don’t have to process all that visual input. But it’s weirder than that. The authors cite another study where people listened to emotional music with their eyes closed or with their eyes open in a completely dark room. The two groups still processed the music differently. So the special sauce isn’t the darkness or lack of visual input, it’s the actual act of putting your eyelids over your eyes. What the heck is that about!?

So what’s your view? Will you ask your kids to close their eyes the next time they consider shooting that spitball at the teacher?

Over the course of this last summer, it became very clear to me that my daughter and I were going to be butting heads on a consistent basis. It didn’t matter what the topic or request, she had to argue or pout as loudly as she could (believe me – pouting can be loud). Keeping in mind my daughter is only four (though, I do think she is four going on thirteen), I have tried (and failed) to keep a level head. This kid really knows how to push my buttons.

The solution came to me in an unlikely place: a toy catalog. My daughter was going to start having a chore/reward chart! I had one of these as a kid; why hadn’t I thought of this before?

Like most families, we are on a budget, so I didn’t want to purchase the most expensive reward chart I could find. After researching for several days, I found two reasonable reward charts: the Magnetic Responsibility Chart by Melissa and Doug, and one called Chores – Monkey by Bright Products.

I decided to purchase the monkey reward chart mainly because it seems to encourage behaviors and chores aimed at a younger audience and it has tokens that I can give out and have my daughter save for larger rewards. It comes with stickers and cards for many chores and activities, such as “clear your plate,” “make your bed,” “pick up toys,” and many others, including duplicates for activities that should be done several times a day. You can also create your own cards if necessary. I found images, printed out our own “stickers,” and glued them to cards for a couple of unique chores.

We keep tokens in an elephant bank until there are enough for a prize.

We have been doing the reward chart for a couple of months now; it has worked great. Our daughter has close to thirty cards a day. If she completes twenty cards, she gets to play Nintendo DS at bedtime and she earns a token toward a bigger prize.

The token system has been a great indicator on its own for monitoring if my daughter is over scheduled (as discussed in an earlier article by Jenny Williams: Stop Overscheduling Your Children!). If my daughter isn’t able to behave and earn the tokens necessary for swim lessons, dance lessons, or games, she does not get those rewards. We keep a piggy bank near the chart to put the tokens in. This makes it easy to count earned tokens as needed, which is something else she enjoys.

Reward charts can be used to encourage behavior changes as well as to start having responsibilities. For example, my daughter now puts the silverware away and feeds the cats on a regular basis. She also is forced to pay attention to how much she whines, how well she follows directions, and if she runs in the house. I end up yelling less when the incentive is playing video games and taking swim lessons.

Having a reward chart forces both parents and kids to be proactive about their responsibilities and behavior…without having to yell or pout too loudly.